Lease on Life
by heliotrip
Summary: He'd never thought of birthday celebrations as something one could incur a debt in, but then again, perhaps the real mystery was why she was even counting. Short Story.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Something silly I started to take a break from writing serious things and things with plot, and also because _can these two just get married already please I swear to the seven circles of Hell I will offer up my soul_ (see fine print for details) _._ Plotless, pointless, ridiculous fluff.

* * *

The first thing he noticed as his hazy awareness broke through layers of sleep and fog was the sensation of slender fingers playing with his hair, threading idly through the locks and occasionally catching a strand in a not-entirely comfortable tug. The second thing he noticed was that she wasn't supposed to be here.

"Mai," he stated, pushing himself upright on the couch where he'd accidentally fallen asleep in the middle of reading last night. She was sitting beside him, a brilliant smile on her face—one he knew better than to trust by now. He tried to focus the things drifting around in his mind, still blurry from sleep, into coherent thoughts. "What are you doing here?"

"Naru, you're awake," she greeted, extracting her fingers from his hair and leaning forward to plant a light kiss on his cheek instead. "Don't fall asleep on the couch like that, you idiot workaholic," she murmured, still close enough that he could feel the breath of her words against his skin as she spoke before she pulled back to a normal distance.

"I didn't give you the apartment key so you could barge in this early in the morning," he told her, trying to sound appropriately irritated.

"No, you didn't," she agreed with a sickly sweet smile. "You gave it to me because I wouldn't stop bugging you. But anyways, you're wrong, because it's eleven already."

"So, like I said, what are you doing here this early?"

She snorted and merely answered his question with another question. "Do you know what day it is?"

It was a question with too many pitfalls, and he tried to gauge what her motive for asking was, but nothing in particular came to mind. "You would know if you just looked at a calendar," he said finally.

"I did look at a calendar," she informed him. "I know what day it is. I was just checking to see if you did."

"The nineteenth of September," he said curtly.

She rolled her eyes. "It's not wrong," she allowed, "but Naru, it's your _birthday._ "

He frowned. "And?"

"So we have to celebrate it, of course."

The faintest hint of a crease appeared between his eyebrows, and he looked away. "I don't—" _I don't celebrate that day anymore_ , he almost said before he stopped himself. When there was nothing but silence for a few moments, he glanced back at Mai. The glimmer of guilt in her eyes and the determined set of her face was enough to tell him that she knew what he was about to say, that she had already anticipated it, and that she was going to stubbornly ignore it anyways.

She drew in a deep breath. "Don't be silly," she told him. "You owe me three birthdays. One for the first year, when you didn't tell us when it was," she said, putting up a finger as she counted, "one for last year, when you were away in England…" Two fingers. "… And this year. Three in total."

He scowled. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Too bad." She wrapped both of her hands around his wrist and tugged lightly. "Come on, hurry up."

"If you have time to waste on something like this, then you should—"

"Should be spending it on my studies, right?" She finished with another roll of her eyes. "I know, I know. But it can't be helped. You're important to me, too. As important as my studies. You can't argue with that, can you?" She smiled again, that devilish, honey-sweet smile that said she knew she had him cornered, and he did, too.

He sighed and finally stood up. "No wonder you have the intelligence of a monkey."

She stuck her tongue out at him in reply. "And if I'm a monkey, what does that make you? You've kissed a monkey."

"Have I?" He raised an eyebrow. "Would you even be able to remember it if I had?"

She had to stand on her tiptoes to do it, but she leaned forward, leveraging herself up with a hand resting on his arm, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "I remember _that._ "

"A two second memory span," he said dryly. "Very impressive."

"Oh, be quiet," she said, circling behind him and pushing him in the direction of the hallway. "Hurry up and get ready, or we won't have enough time."

Fifteen minutes later, he met her where she was pacing impatiently just outside the door, an excited spring in her step, and waited for her to explain what kind of harebrained idea she'd cooked up. Instead of explaining, though, she simply took him by the hand, threading her fingers through his, and pulled him toward the station.

He had a bad premonition the moment he saw which line she led him onto, and that premonition proved correct when she tugged on his sleeve at an all-too familiar stop and led him down even more familiar streets.

"Go on," she told him, a suspicious look of anticipation on her face as she urged him to climb the single set of stairs to the SPR office. The decision to install frosted glass on the door finally paid off; he could see the shifting shadows of people peering out from the semi-translucent window, no doubt thinking they were quite clever.

"Ladies first," he said, smiling sarcastically, and he could practically see all her carefully-concocted plans crash around her as her lips twisted into a pout.

"Since when have you been a paragon of etiquette?" She demanded. "You _always_ insist on being first."

"I don't insist. People just naturally follow those with more intelligence."

"Oh, is that so? Then, lead the way, Sir Genius," she said, gesturing up the stairs. "How could a monkey like me possibly hope to compare?"

He raised an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that, insensible as it might seem, you were leading here. Perhaps I was mistaken; in that case, I'll be leading us back—"

"Fine!" She interrupted hastily, grabbing hold of his arm as he turned and took a step back down the street. "I'll go first, okay? Just _come._ "

He had to fight the urge to smile at the reluctant scowl on her face, since unlike certain people, he didn't gloat so openly. She dashed up the stairs and put a hand to the doorknob, hesitating for a moment before she turned it cautiously and pushed it open just a crack.

"Hey, wait—" She tried to say, but whoever was on the other side didn't heed her. The door was flung open from the inside, and a tangled mess of confetti and streamers landed on top of her, making her resemble an insect trapped in some sort of ridiculous rainbow spiderweb more than a human being. She blew stray pieces of paper out of her mouth and swatted blindly at her head, trying to dislodge the heap. So that was what they'd been planning.

Takigawa's head was the first to poke out, a confused look on his face as he looked first at Mai, then at Naru standing a few steps behind. "Mai," he said slowly, trying to grasp the situation, "You weren't supposed to come in first."

"Oh, really?" Naru said, his tone as flat as usual. "Who was?"

The monk laughed weakly and scratched his head. "Well, no one in particular. You know, it was just a prank…"

Ayako's voice sounded from behind the monk. "You let him find out," she accused Mai, who was still fumbling with the paper streamers obscuring her vision and only succeeding in getting them more tangled in her hair. Naru reached out and brushed her fingers aside impatiently as he deftly plucked out the worst offender of the bunch. More than half of the knotted mess abruptly slid to the ground, and the high schooler lifted her face to glare at Ayako.

"It was your fault, not mine. If you hadn't all been standing so close to the door like that, he wouldn't have found out!"

"Now, now," Yasuhara interrupted cheerfully. "There's no need to argue over it. We saw this coming the minute we planned it, right?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Mai protested.

Masako agreed with a dainty smile. "Playing the fool suits you better, anyways," she said primly, hiding her smug grin behind the sleeve of her kimono.

"I've brought the cake," Madoka called from behind as she ascended the stairs herself, pushing Naru and Mai aside. She beamed as she set it down on the table and lifted the lid of the box, revealing not a cake but a large piece of clear, purplish jelly, molded to look like a cake. "Since you don't like sweet things," she explained.

Naru merely sighed as Mai pushed him into taking a seat on the sofa, though he adamantly refused the conical party hat that she attempted to stick onto his head. Apparently, that was the cue for something, because the entire room burst into the most cacophonous version of "Happy Birthday" he had ever heard—save for Lin, who looked suspiciously like he was only mouthing the words with that stoic face of his. He resolved to hire psychics who weren't completely tone-deaf next time.

"Blow out the candles and make a wish," John urged, setting a cupcake with nineteen lit candles crammed onto its tiny surface in front of him.

"That's a groundless superstition," he said, annoyed, but Mai sank into the seat beside him and elbowed him mercilessly.

"Just try it," she told him. "For fun. What harm could it do?"

"It's a waste of breath," he said curtly.

"You just don't want to look silly with puffy cheeks," she guessed. "Or you're scared you won't be able to blow them all out in one go. The great Oliver Davis, ghost hunter extraordinaire, defeated by a bunch of mere candles."

"Don't confuse me with you."

She scoffed. "I'm perfectly capable of blowing out a few candles." He raised an eyebrow in challenge, and she narrowed her eyes. "If I do it, you have to go along with me for the rest of the day," she told him.

He shrugged. " _If_ you do it."

Without another word, and without noticing Yasuhara mouthing, ' _Get. A. Room._ ' in the corner with a gleeful look in his eye, she sucked in a deep breath and blew at the little flames, the wax from the candles already half-melted and covering the cupcake in a second layer of frosting by now. One last candle simply refused to go down, but with a little bit of strained blowing—followed by a brief cough—she did manage to vanquish the entire bunch in one go, and she turned back to him with childish triumph in her pleased smile.

Just to prove his indifference to the university student making subtle faces in the corner of the room—Naru refused to contemplate the idea that he might simply be playing right into Yasuhara's hands—he leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. Whatever Yasuhara's intentions might have been, though, Mai's strangled half-splutter and Takigawa's choked gasp were well worth it, the annoyed jab to the stomach that Ayako gave the monk even more so. "Are you in grade school?" She demanded, and the monk looked appropriately ashamed of himself.

"You pick the worst timing," Mai told him indignantly under her breath.

"You did tell me to make a wish after the candles were out," he murmured back, barely audible even to her, and certainly not at all to the rest of the room.

She scowled. "That's not fair. You can't spew lines like that, with that face, like—like—Yasuhara _._ "

His eyes drifted up toward the ceiling. "I was under the impression that I was much better at it."

Madoka's delicate cough brought their attention back to their rapt audience, and he remembered a little too late that however quietly they might have spoken, Mai's face was practically a loudspeaker broadcasting their exchange. He kept his expression impassive, but he could see her burying her face in her hands already from the corner of his eye.

"You can open the presents later," Madoka told him, a smile on her face as if nothing had happened. "If you don't hurry, you won't have time for the rest of the day."

He wasn't surprised to find out that Madoka was in on whatever Mai had concocted; she'd been the source for half of the tricks the high schooler had learned, he was sure. "The rest of the day?" He asked suspiciously.

"Three birthdays, remember?" Mai reminded him. "This is only for this year." She stood up, taking his hand and pulling him toward the door again. "No complaining—you promised."

"I promised to go along, not that I wouldn't complain," he pointed out, though he followed reluctantly, stepping gingerly over the rainbow mess that had been the confetti trap. She ignored his comment, her grip on his hand absolutely secure as she bounded down the stairs.

Madoka saw them out to the door and waved at them from the top of the stairs, calling, "Be careful, and have fun!"

"But don't have _too_ much fun," Yasuhara added from behind her, a mischievous glint in his eye.

* * *

 **A/N:** I think Naru is more openly sweet in this fic than I'd have placed him this early on in their relationship (I would have imagined it at more, say, two or more years in?), but whatever. Life is short, or something like that, right?

Since I'm pretty much just working on this as a side project, I don't really know how often I'll update; it's planned to be something like a three-part short story, but we'll see. Anyways, thanks for reading, and see you next update (I hope)!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N** : Apparently, when I tell my brain "side project," it interprets that as "time to refuse to be able to write absolutely anything other than this." So here I am again, I guess, much earlier than expected.

This chapter is dedicated to Yuuri, the least featured school friend of Mai's in fics (aside from that other one who isn't even named and may or may not even exist depeding on which adaptation of GH it is)

* * *

"So?" Naru asked as they sat on the nearly-empty train running on another familiar line. "Where is it this time?"

"Are you curious?" Mai asked with a grin.

"I'd like to know where I'm being dragged off to."

"Serves you right," she told him with a snicker. "You're always ordering us around without explaining anything."

"In my case, it's because you wouldn't understand even if I did," he pointed out, to which she scrunched up her nose.

"Maybe you're just not any good at explaining," she challenged. "After all, I seem perfectly fine when Mori-san teaches things."

"Madoka wouldn't know the difference between how to operate a toaster and a thermography camera."

"Is that any way to talk about your boss?" She demanded.

He smiled sarcastically. "In that case, do you plan on changing the way you speak to me?"

"Urk." Her lips twisted indignantly, but she had nothing to say in reply, and she could only hang her head in defeat.

The train rescued her as it slid gracefully onto the station platform, and she stood up quickly, gesturing at Naru to follow. Though he raised an eyebrow when he saw the name of the station they were disembarking at, he didn't comment until they were already circling the walls of her school.

"What prompted such a change in attitude that you would decide to go to school on a Sunday afternoon?" He asked dryly.

"You'll see," she told him, scanning the area to locate her target. When she spotted the school's rarely-used back gate, the designs in its metal bars and its low height making it perfect for climbing, she pushed herself up and leapt nimbly to the other side. She could see the reluctance on his face as he followed, but Naru kept his word, if nothing else, and follow he did.

But not without a snide comment, of course. "You're adding trespassing to your list of hobbies?"

"It's not trespassing. It's my school, isn't it?"

"Climbing over a locked gate onto property that doesn't belong to you would normally be classified as trespassing," he pointed out. "And even if your definition held, it isn't _my_ school, which means you're aiding and abetting."

"And when did you become such a stickler for rules?" She scoffed. "If I remember correctly, someone made up a complete scam about compensation for a camera that was perfectly insured… right on this campus."

"With that memory of yours, I doubt you do remember correctly," he said indifferently, but his face was turned carefully in the other direction.

She ignored him, instead heading for the familiar path of cherry trees—half-barren by now, of course—that led to what had once been a decrepit wooden building. Now that even the remains of that mess of lumber had been cleared away, it was obvious that the area where it'd once stood sunk visibly in the middle, just as Naru had guessed. She knelt down at the center of the sort-of-crater, running her fingers over a few pebbles and loose dirt as she lost herself in recollection.

"You'll need more tools than that if you plan to take up gardening," came Naru's sardonic voice. Evidently, he was still irritated at being dragged halfway across the city first thing in the morning.

From her kneeling position, she tilted her head up to look at him as he approached from behind, but looking from that angle made him appear upside-down in her field of vision, and that was even more dizzying than usual. She gave herself up to gravity and flopped backwards, lying idly on the ground; it was surprisingly mesmerizing to watch the sky, the way it seemed to stretch endlessly up, up, up. "I have you, don't I? I bet you could think of something if you really tried."

"Unfortunately, I have no interest in fruitless labor," he informed her, bending over to brush a few tiny rocks out of her hair, though the gesture only succeeded in getting even more dust in it. "Is there a reason you've suddenly lost all capacity for ambulation?"

"I haven't, whatever that is," she said. "I was just remembering. This is where we met, after all."

"Your memory is worse than I expected. We met in the AV room."

She grinned triumphantly. "So you do remember!"

He looked a little annoyed. "Probably better than you do."

"Well, anyways, that doesn't count," she said dismissively. "Because I wanted nothing to do with you the first time."

"And knocking over a shelf, injuring my assistant, and breaking an expensive piece of equipment changed your mind?"

"No," she admitted, "but it's not like I had a choice after that." She scowled. "Because you're a con artist."

He shrugged. "I didn't lie. You just never asked if the insurance—which I offered to show you—would cover the damage. Your ignorance is your own fault."

"I bet that's what con artists say." She stuck her tongue out at him, but she suspected that the fact that he was quite literally looking down on her somewhat reduced its effect. Sufficiently motivated by the thought, she picked herself back up and dusted herself off. "I have forgiven you, though. I'm generous, aren't I?"

"Incredibly," he told her, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. With her head now soundly separated from the ground, whose debris seemed to cling to her hair with a mind of its own, his efforts finally succeeded in disentangling loose rocks and lingering confetti pieces from her hair. It was a good thing she kept it short, she supposed.

"I did get to meet you because of that, so I suppose it wasn't all a bad thing. It almost makes me think I should try breaking more cameras."

"The next one really is coming out of your paycheck," he informed her.

"It was a _joke_ ," she emphasized, playing with one of the buttons on his shirt. "Can't you think of it as a good thing? I might never have gotten to know you if I hadn't—"

"Maimed Lin?"

"That's exaggerating."

Naru scoffed. "You would have."

He said it with such certainty that she looked up at him with suspicion. "What?"

"You attract disaster to the point that it's almost supernatural," he clarified. "You were bound to get involved somehow."

"Are you saying that we were destined to meet, or something?"

"I was speaking of probability. The concept of destiny is inherently a teleological fallacy," he disagreed, and she rolled her eyes.

"Oh, whatever. Let's keep going," she said, tugging lightly on his sleeve and turning her head, dislodging his fingers from her hair in the process. "This way."

He followed quietly this time as she led them farther down the path to a new building she'd only see a few times before herself, so new that the birds hadn't yet had a chance to decorate it with their own form of art, and the smell of fresh paint still lingered on its walls. She reached out to touch its smooth, bumpy surface, the unexpected coldness of it eliciting a shiver.

"It's the new school building," she explained. "They started construction right after the old one collapsed, and it's just been finished. I thought you should see it."

"I'm not interested in your school's architecture," he said flatly.

"I know," she said, rolling her eyes. "But I thought you should see it, anyways. It wouldn't have been possible without you, after all."

Naru shrugged disinterestedly. "This piece of land has always been empty. Whether or not the old building was there wouldn't have affected its construction, and anyways, the building collapsed on its own."

"I know that, too," she told him, "But I still think it wouldn't have been built if not for you. I think, somehow, the old one had to be cleared out first before we could really think about building this one—not just the building itself, I mean, but that weird feeling it gave."

"Those stories still scare you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No!" She answered, a little too emphatically. Her eyebrows drew into a frown as she rushed to justify herself. "I mean, not those stories in particular, but it's normal to be a little scared still, isn't it?" She said defiantly. "Of course I've gotten used to them now, but they have tried to kill me a few times. Even people are scary sometimes, after all."

He only gave a light snort in response, and she turned back to the building indignantly as she pulled out a key from her pocket and unlocked the door.

"Theft, now?" He asked, looking pointedly at the key.

"I'm _borrowing_ it," she emphasized. "Yuuri got permission to use it for club activities over the weekend."

"I didn't realize I'd signed up for your club," he said dryly.

"It was in the fine print."

"Of which contract?"

She threaded her arm around his in reply and pulled him through the door.

Only a few steps through the door, he stopped abruptly, and she nearly fell over backwards when she didn't stop walking in time. "Wait," he said in a low voice. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Her eyes flew up in alarm as she glanced around.

He narrowed his eyes. "Do you have a thermometer?"

She blinked uneasily. "No way. You're kidding, right? A ghost? Here? It was only built a few weeks ago!"

Naru didn't say anything, though, and his face was as impassive as ever. Her grip on his arm tightened, and she unconsciously edged closer.

"Hey… Naru… If there really is one, what should we do? We have to find out what it is first, right? Should we really be staying here? Should we… should we tell the school? Have them close off the building?"

"That won't be necessary."

She looked at him uncertainly. "Are you sure? What if it's dangerous?"

"It's not," he told her, smiling sardonically. "The only thing resembling a ghost here is Taniyama Mai."

Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to wrap her mind around what was going on, and when realization hit her, her head jerked upward in indignation. "You _tricked_ me!"

"You jumped to conclusions on your own."

"Only because you said such misleading things!"

"You should have known better than to think that I'd make such an assumption less than two minutes in," he countered.

"I should have known better than to trust you in the first place." She scowled at him. "Does it ever get lonely up there on your high horse? Of course not, because your overinflated ego and your own reflection are more than enough company for you, you damn narc—" She broke off suddenly, a look of concentration on her face. "Did you hear that?"

He sighed. "Mai, you can't use the same tr—"

"Shh!" She pressed a finger to her lips urgently, and this time, they both did hear it—the sound of light footsteps, the crunch of leaves being trampled underfoot, coming from just outside the building. It was the sort of creature who'd inspired fear in humanity since the dawn of time.

"A teacher," she breathed in horror, grabbing hold of Naru's hand and making a break for the nearest classroom. She threw the door open as quickly as she could without making too much sound, then closed it again and pushed the both of them under the teacher's desk in the corner of the room.

In the dark, cramped space, she could feel both of their heartbeats palpitating loudly, rhythmically, almost like drums—or maybe it was just hers being loud enough for two. Her day pack was shoved against the desk, the hard edges of the boxes inside pressing painfully into her back through the fabric. On the other hand, Naru was nearly pressed against her front side, their limbs tangled in an inextricable mess and their combined body heat quickly warming the small space as they both froze in terror. Or, at least, as she froze terror, and he probably just didn't care.

"So much for permission for club activities," he exhaled, so quietly that she was only able to hear because his face was mere inches away from her ear. Yep, he definitely just didn't care.

She didn't dare speak or even move until the footsteps receded, and even then, she waited a good five minutes until she was certain that no one was nearby. Only then did she edge her way out from under the desk and breathe a sigh of relief.

"You realize," Naru said sarcastically as he stood up, never missing a chance to rub her oversights in her face, "that had we been caught, being caught at the door would have been much less compromising than being caught in your idea of a hiding place."

She desperately pretended not to notice the heat creeping onto her cheeks. "Well, the idea was not to get caught at all," she said bitingly.

"Which would have been an excellent notion, had it not been for the fact that the opening of the desk is clearly visible from the door."

Her forehead wrinkled as she took a few steps back to size up the room from the doorway and realized that he was, of course, correct. "Then why didn't you say so earlier?" She muttered, but he ignored her. "Forget that," she ordered. "We're going upstairs."

He sighed but followed her up the stairs and down the hall anyways, a skeptical look on his face as she opened the door to each classroom in turn to examine it. Finally, she found the one she was looking for and darted toward the window, almost pressing her face against the glass in excitement.

"Doesn't it look nice?" She breathed. From that angle, the two rows of cherry trees lining the school path spread out perfectly beneath her. Nobody thought of September as the season for looking at cherry trees, but the red and gold foliage blazed like fire in the afternoon sun, and the fallen leaves carpeted the ground in luxurious velvet. The rich brown branches, where exposed, had a regal sort of solemnity to them that wouldn't lose to any great oak or grand mountain. "They're a little half-bald, but they look perfectly dream-like, don't they?"

"So your best idea was dragging me here to see half-bald trees?" Despite his words, there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Well, they're still pretty," she defended. "And they sort of reminded me of you."

"Half-bald trees remind you of me?" Less amused.

"Well… You don't have to put it that way," she told him. "Anyways, I thought it would be nice to eat here."

His mouth quirked into a sarcastic line. "That you might have come because you'd suddenly developed a passion for learning was too much to hope for after all."

"Oh, be quiet. It's Sunday. Not everyone has as little of a life outside of work as you do."

"Oh? Do enlighten me; what do you usually do on Sundays?"

"… Work," she admitted. "But that's different."

He snorted lightly as she shrugged off the day pack on her back and extracted the two cloth-wrapped bundles inside. Despite their previous misadventure, the little boxes were still in good shape, and their contents were packed tightly enough that they hadn't shifted around… too much, at least. She untied the blue cloth around one of the boxes and pushed it toward him.

"I made them this morning," she said with a hint of pride. "Actual morning, I mean, not eleven or whatever it is you call morning. There's no meat or anything inside," she added.

"That's a new skill you've acquired," he commented.

"Matsuzaki-san has been helping me practice. She says I ought to know how to cook, since I live alone."

"So even she can be correct at times."

"Don't be rude. Anyways, shouldn't you learn, too? You live alone now as well."

"The particular arrangement of food hardly affects the nutritional composition," he remarked with disinterest.

She scowled. "That would be more convincing if you weren't so picky."

"I'm not picky."

"Aren't you?" She challenged. "You won't eat sweet things, you won't eat meat…"

"Vegetarianism is a matter of lifestyle, not of preference," he interrupted.

"… or things that are over-salted, or too bland, or overcooked, or undercooked…"

"Do you expect me to eagerly swallow something blatantly inedible?"

"… or things that are too ' _leafy_ ,' or too mushy, or that require peeling or cracking or disassembling of any sort…"

"Of course I have preferences, given the option," he snapped.

"'The arrangement of food doesn't affect the nutrition,'" she repeated, mimicking his sarcastic tone down to its details.

"That was merely a statement of fact."

"Yeah? Well, here's another: 'Naru is picky.'"

He sighed and gave in, or gave up—she could rarely tell the difference, or whether there was a difference at all when it came to him. She grinned in triumph, but the tone of his next words somehow threw off the exhilaration of victory.

"So, this is the 'debt' for the second year?" He asked, and it bothered her that she couldn't quite puzzle out what he meant.

"That's right."

He was silent for a minute, and his gaze drifted out to window to the gold-bedecked trees, the light from the setting sun dyeing them an even more vibrant shade of scarlet."The last one… is for the first year." It was a statement, not a question.

There was such quiet contemplation in his voice that she looked up in surprise and nearly asked him if he'd already guessed where she wanted to go, but if there was ever such a thing as a stupid question, that would be it. Of course he had guessed.

"Yes…" She answered uncertainly, and for a brief moment, she wondered if she shouldn't call it off after all. It was territory that neither of them were very good at venturing into. She didn't know if she could carry through with it; she didn't know if _he_ would carry through with it, but, she supposed, the mere fact that he wasn't already up in arms in protest was an encouraging enough sign.

He exhaled softly. "It's nearly dark."

"That's perfect. We won't be able to see if it's not dark."

He cast her a brief glance. "You have it backwards."

"I don't," she insisted. "I'm right." She hesitated and looked at him with concern. "Naru… Are you alright with it? It'll certainly be painful, won't it?"

"Are you going to say I shouldn't keep avoiding things?"

She shook her head vigorously. "I'm only being selfish."

"Well," he allowed with the faintest trace of a smile, "I suppose I do owe you for three years."

"Do you think it's really fine? Is it too intimate of a gesture?"

"You're worried about that _now_?"

"I was thinking about it before," she protested. "But you wouldn't have agreed to anything if I had wavered."

He looked up at the ceiling. "Since it's you, it should be fine."

"Even though I didn't know him until after he… died?"

"Does that make a difference?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I thought and thought about it, but I came up with a different answer each time."

He sighed, and it seemed like he really was thinking it over. "It doesn't," he finally said with certainty, and she believed him.

* * *

 **A/N** : I don't know why Gene refuses to give up the ghost in my writing even when I had intended to make it fluffy. I suppose it couldn't be helped to a certain extent, since they are twins, and given the plot... I think it's probably also because, to me, Gene is what makes death "real" in Ghost Hunt, though. Ghosts and spirits and curses are all very nice and well, but they don't really hit home in the same way. One of these days, I will manage to write something that has nothing to do with him, though. Definitely, someday.

Anyways, thanks to everyone who spent a few minutes out of their day on this silly mess, and I hope you've enjoyed it so far!


	3. Chapter 3

He didn't recognize the line they took to get there or the station they stopped at, but he recognized the name of that lake and the view of its shoreline. It was the only sizable body of water anywhere near Tokyo that he hadn't visited personally. He hadn't needed to; he'd already known it couldn't be the one.

Her fingers crept along the seat to find his as if she'd sensed his thoughts. Or as if she'd had similar ones of her own. "Mori-san said it was one of his favorite places when he visited, before…" She swallowed and stared at the dim tunnel lights on the other side of the window as if entranced. "It's not the best, but it was the only thing I could think of that would work today. It has to be today, after all."

When he didn't answer, she lowered her head.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "Sorry."

The darkness of night seemed to suck the color away from everything, but the lake still shone with a deep, rich blue as it reflected the moonlight. The deep shadows of the shoreline made it difficult to tell where the trees ended and water began, but the concrete wall on the other side stood impassive, imposing.

She led him down a narrow trail through lush grass until they reached the waterline and knelt down, letting the daypack on her back slide down her arms. It wasn't until she dug a shallow pit in the dirt with her fingers and pulled a pack of sparklers out of the pack that he spoke up.

"Did you even check if fireworks are permitted here at this time of year?" He asked dryly. The flash of surprise followed by guilt on her face was enough to tell him that the answer was 'no.'

"It's only a crime if we get caught," she said defensively, and he sighed.

"You're becoming quite the criminal today."

They both fell silent as she finished piling loose soil around the sparkler, holding it firmly in place. The first match she struck snapped in two after several failed attempts, and she threw it into a plastic bag with a soft curse. The second one nearly burned her fingers when she held it up the wrong way, and she dropped it into the ground with an alarmed squeak. When the sparkler finally lit on the third try, she breathed a sigh of relief and clasped her hands together as if in prayer.

"Happy birthday, Gene."

He stepped closer and knelt down next to her as she turned her eyes upwards, not at the sparks flying off of the firework but at the stars above that seemed to reflect the little dusts of flame. There was no point in adding to her words; she said everything he might have considered, along with plenty that he never had.

"Wherever you are, I hope you're smiling," she began hesitatingly. "Even though I never knew you during that time, thank you for having been alive. You really were one of the best people to ever exist. Thank you for helping us all the time, thank you for encouraging and teaching me, and… thank you for… giving me the chance to… to meet…"

Her voice cracked on the last sentence, and for whatever reason, it seemed like she was having trouble finishing it. Her hands were clenched together so tightly that her knuckles were paper-white, and she was clearly fighting back tears behind closed eyelids. He gently pried her fingers apart and pulled her into him, and that seemed to break whatever dam had been there as she started heaving muffled sobs into his shoulder.

"Is it worth crying about?" He asked, stroking her hair softly. She shook her head, the action inadvertently soaking fresh tears into his shirt, but she kept her lips pressed firmly together. He didn't offer any more words, either; there was precious little that could reach her until she'd calmed down somewhat, at least.

By the time her cries subsided into uneven sniffs, the sparkler had already been burnt out for several minutes. She still didn't raise her head, and it was only thanks to the near-deafening silence around them that he could even make out her halted words, even further distorted from being pressed against his shoulder.

"Sorry… I'm sorry… even though it's his birthday, and I should be the one comforting you…"

He exhaled softly. "I don't need something like that."

"I shouldn't have been allowed to do this."

"You shouldn't have," he agreed. "Fireworks aren't permitted after ten at night."

She made a choked noise that sounded like it had started out as a laugh and turned into a strangled hiccup instead. "I don't deserve you, or him. I'm a horrible person."

"If you're to be believed, so am I," he remarked indifferently, but she only shook her head again.

"I hate that he died. I hate that he left you, and that he never got a chance to live out his life. But sometimes… sometimes… when I wake up from that dream, I'm _glad._ I'm glad it wasn't you instead, and I'm even relieved that you had to come here to search for him because if you hadn't, I'd never have met you, and I…" She broke off into another hiccup. "It's an awful thing to think here, right now."

He didn't need to ask which dream; it was one that both of them had had—a parting gift of the psychic connection that they shared with his twin. He almost regretted telling her about his death sometimes, when he suspected that that had catalyzed the appearance of that particular scene for her, but she wasn't so fragile that she had to be shielded from the sight of death, and she deserved to know.

"Whatever your feelings on the subject, they can hardly affect his state after the fact."

"I know. I know. You're right." She sucked in deep breaths, and the quaver in her voice settled somewhat even as she clutched at his sleeve even more tightly. "I'm sorry."

With a sigh, he buried a hand in her hair. "If I were so adverse to the idea, I wouldn't have agreed to come."

"But, even so, it's because I made you come here… because I was being selfish… I thought, even if it was just one day, I wanted to thank you for being alive. Or maybe, it's rather that I felt like if I didn't ever get to… something would happen… something awful…"

The strength she put into her fingers as she gripped his arm was near painful, but it was somehow reassuring as well. He waited until the tension in her fingers slowly relaxed before he spoke.

"As if I'm stupid enough to let 'something awful' happen to me."

Though still a bit hoarse, she laughed for real this time as she wiped away lingering tears from red, swollen eyes. "There's plenty awful that could happen… Your head could get even bigger… Your sense of humor could get even worse…"

"Hmm."

"… You could become an even worse kisser…"

He leaned in unexpectedly to cover her mouth with his, stealing the words right from her lips along with a startled intake of air. "Who is what?" He murmured into her ear.

"Well… practice makes perfect," she breathed, and he scoffed lightly.

"That's what people with no talent say."

"You were no good at all at first," she mumbled, and he quirked an eyebrow.

"Evidently, that's too far back for your limited memory to handle."

A dissatisfied crease appeared on her forehead, but it quickly disappeared as she buried her face in his shirt again. "I really am glad you exist," she said, her muffled voice sounding as if it were directed at his attire as her conversation partner. "Every single day. I must have used up a lifetime's worth of luck just to meet you."

"That would explain a lot of things," he sighed.

"I'm sorry for dragging you out today. If you want, I'll never bring it up again. I'll pretend September nineteenth is just any other day…"

His gaze drifted to the burnt-out sparkler still sticking out of the pile of dirt. "That's not completely necessary, either," he said idly, his hands trailing down her shoulder to rest lightly on her back.

She lifted her head to look at him with astonishment. "Is it really?"

He shrugged in reply and began to pull her up. "If you don't hurry, the last train will leave."

At that, she scrambled up in a hurry and collected the remains of the dead sparkler and matches, rushing to keep up with him as he headed back toward the station; they really were the only two people there at this hour. He was quiet for the entire walk and half the train ride back, and she was on the verge of dozing off when he suddenly spoke.

"Next July…" he began, then hesitated. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and looked at him questioningly. "… I'd like to visit your parents' graves."

"Would you really?" She asked in surprise. Her hand searched for his and interlaced their fingers, trying to probe his thoughts. "I've always wanted for them to meet you."

A slight frown surfaced on his face. "You've never mentioned it."

"I never thought…" She averted her eyes. "Never mind that. Would you really go with me? I haven't been there for a while; I'll have to take the chance to clean their gravestones. It's a bit far—we might have to stay the night. Oh, and I guess we'd have to figure out how to get there, and…"

"It's not until next year," he reminded her, and she squeezed his hand briefly.

"That's right… Next year," she echoed. "It is, isn't it? Why did you bring it up so suddenly?"

He glanced at her and shrugged. "I remembered."

"Remembered what?" She asked.

But he only smiled faintly in reply.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm not entirely sure if this still qualifies as fluff, but precise definitions are meant for people with more sense than I, I suppose. Thank you for sticking with this mess, and I hope it was worth the read!


End file.
